“No bus this morning,” Rick said, startling her. “Is it a holiday?”
Ada shrugged, surprised that she hadn’t noticed the lack of sounds. “It’s just Thursday.”
“Probably some stupid in-service day.” He sighed and rolled out of bed. “Means there’ll be screaming and shouting in the yard, or the basketball slamming against the building all afternoon. How can someone who can’t afford to buy his kids video games afford a house, anyway?”
And with that, Rick padded to the bathroom, totally naked. He had love handles just above his hips. She hadn’t noticed that before. When was the last time she had really looked at him?
It worried her that she couldn’t remember.
The shop was quiet except for the mellow strains of a Mozart piano concerto. Outside, the rain whipped in the wind, making puddles on the city’s streets deep enough to clog drains. Good thing Ada already had her materials in the car. She wouldn’t want to take them outside in this weather.
She was looking forward to this afternoon’s job. She loved the early parts in the process: assessing the house, letting the customer start dreaming about the way her home would look when Ada finished. Most people didn’t know how new tile changed the feeling of a kitchen or how a single horizontal strip of wallpaper brought a bedroom’s details together.
Ada knew, though, and could explain clearly. People trusted her, said she made them visualize the changes long before they happened.
Sometimes, she thought if she had remained single, she would be rich by now.
She made herself shake off the thought. If she had remained single, if they hadn’t moved, if they hadn’t lost all their equity in the quick sale of the house on Dover — all things that couldn’t be changed. People never got do-overs. A life couldn’t be remodeled the way a house could.
Ada sipped the last of her afternoon cup of Darjeeling, then opened the finances file on the computer. She had to print out a final invoice for Mr. Goldstein. She’d drop it off on the way to this afternoon’s appointment.
The financial file looked different. Rick always set the computer on “icons” rather than “list” the way she preferred it. He must have stopped in the office after he saw the accountant and updated the files on site. Usually he updated files from home, using the computer network they had spent a fortune to set up six years ago. Now their systems were out of date, and they couldn’t afford a new one.
She pulled down her View options from the toolbar, made the change, and watched as the icons became a table of contents for the file. She scanned, looking for the Goldstein account and not finding it. In fact, this file looked different somehow. She saw Urbanick, a name she didn’t recognize. She frowned, wondering if Urbanick had been a consult she had forgotten about, and clicked open the file.
This file contained additional files: URCredithist, URMortg, UREmploy, URPersonal, and more, scrolling all the way to the bottom of the open window.
Had Rick gotten the accountant’s files by mistake? That didn’t make any sense. Even if Rick had, he wouldn’t have copied them to the hard drive. He would have simply put the disk in his briefcase and taken it back to the accountant the next afternoon.
Wouldn’t he?
She clicked open URCredithist, and found credit reports. She glanced at one, felt as she would peeping into someone’s bedroom, and was about to close the file when the top line caught her eye:
Her breath caught. Her address was 1323 SW Oak. Urbanick must have been Muffler Man’s real name. What was Rick doing, investigating the neighbor’s personal history? Looking for a way to get them to move?
She clicked back to the original window, saw that Rick had, indeed, downloaded these files the day before, along with the rest of the financial files.
The phone rang, and she looked guiltily at the clock on the computer’s desktop. She wasn’t late for her appointment yet, but she would be if she continued to explore these files.
She picked up the phone and found herself talking to a potential new client. While she went through the familiar spiel, she found a floppy, downloaded the strange files, and then closed them. She labeled the disk 1996, knowing that Rick would have no reason to investigate something that old, and then slipped it into the pile of backups they kept in the shop’s supply room.
By the time she had finished with the call, she had tidied up her desk, printed the invoice, and grabbed her purse. She was ready for her consultation.
But her enthusiasm for the new job was gone. Instead, she found herself worrying about the mystery files, her stomach so acidic that she had to take five Tums before it settled down.
For the third night in less than a week, Rick asked her to bring home pizza. Lately, she’d been doing a lot of the cooking after she got in, or she brought home takeout.
She had understood it when he was cramming, preparing the financials for the accountant. But that meeting was past. Rick should have had more than enough time to make something quick and healthy.
She’d meant to say something when she came in, but Rick hadn’t been anywhere around. She had had to put the pizza in the oven, and then she’d had to track him down when it was warm.
He had hidden himself in their office, huddled over the computer’s keyboard as if it held the secrets of the universe. She came into the room just far enough to see what he was doing and started. He was manipulating numbers in the Quicken program, using its mortgage calculator.
Her stomachache returned. “Are we going to move again?” she blurted before she had a chance to stop herself.
Rick whirled to face her. “Ada. I didn’t realize you were home.”
“I called for you. I put in the pizza. It’s done. Can’t you smell it?”
“Now I can.” He smiled.
“Are we moving?” she repeated, not willing to let this go.
“No.” His neck was flushed. She had embarrassed him, but she wasn’t sure how. “The news last night said prime was going down again. I was recalculating to see if new rates would benefit us.”
“Just because prime goes down doesn’t mean mortgage rates will.” She couldn’t believe she was lecturing him on money. He had always been the financial brains in the family.
“I know, honey, but it usually follows. So I figured, why not?” He flicked a couple of keys and the file closed. Then the screen went dark. “You said dinner’s ready?”
“I said the pizza was done.” She knew she sounded bitchy, but she didn’t care. He was lying to her. He was planning another move. He’d had enough of the revving car, the school bus, the neighbors next-door.
Ada studied him, actually seeing him for the first time in years. The dark good looks were gone. Crow’s-feet and a mouth downturned from constant disappointment had given his face a pinched look. His eyes, once his best feature, now seemed small.
“Ada?” Rick said, with an emphasis that let her know he was repeating himself. “Everything okay?”
She didn’t want to answer that.
“Let’s eat,” she said, and headed downstairs to the hideous orange kitchen. Then she leaned on the countertop, wondering how she had gotten to this place. Was her face as pinched as Rick’s? She was afraid to go to the mirror and find out.
The next day, Ada had a client lunch at the city’s newest upscale restaurant. She parked in the nearby lot, pulled up her hood against the seemingly endless rain, and stepped gingerly across puddles covering the pavement.
Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm. She turned, startled, and saw Muffler Man.